Flu Season Research Paper

Millions of people get the flu each year in the US, about 2000 of those people will be severe enough to get hospitalized and about 3600 people will die because of some complication with the flu as stated in the article “Flu” on the Walgreens website.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), flu vaccination coverage among adults was 43.6% for the 2014-2015 season, increased by 1.4 percentage compared to the 2013-14 season. Coverage with one or more doses of flu vaccine was 59.3% for children who are 6 months through 17 years, increased by 0.4 percentage compared to the 2013-2014 season. For adults, females have higher flu vaccination coverage than males for every age group except adults ≥65 years. Among adults, coverage for non-Hispanic whites, which is 46.7%, was higher than coverage for non-Hispanic blacks. (CDC,

Central/Thesis Statement: Influenza (“flu”) is a contagious disease that spreads around the United States every year, usually between October and May.

As of January, 85 flu related deaths have been confirmed since the beginning of the 2017-2018 influenza season. Each year we experience what is known as flu season, with new strains of the virus infecting millions of people each year, some years receiving a flu vaccine is not sufficient protection from developing the flu and flu like symptoms. The current 2018 flu season is a bad season. The vaccine that was developed and administered unfortunately was not correctly developed.

A lot of people often relegate the flu to ordinary fever. What they don't know is that influenza is anything but ordinary, and should not be taken lightly. Each year, over 40,000 people die from flu-related causes and send over 200,000 people in the US to the hospitals. The medical and hospitalization bills associated with it is no joke. Under the circumstances, prevention is the best course to take.

Seasonal influenza is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in the industrialized world. The United States alone averages more than 23,000 influenza-associated deaths annually (Cortes-Penfield, 2014). Everyone is given the option to receive the flu vaccination each year. The vaccine is offered in health care facilities, clinics, and pharmacies around

Influenza is responsible for hospitalizations and deaths in the United States. Prevention through vaccination is one way to circumvent illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths. Those persons who were more susceptible fall into the categories of 6 months to 4 years of age and 65 years and older. According to CDC (2013), the 2012-13 influenza season was characterized as a moderately severe season based on the surveillance data. Regardless of suggestions and encouragements of schools and places of employment for individuals to be vaccinated against the flu, fewer than half the persons in the United States each year are inoculated against this disease. Influenza vaccines are now widely used to reduce the burden of annual epidemics of influenza virus infections (Cowling, et al., 2016).

The flu is spread very easily and many people have contracted it before the symptoms genuinely start to be seen. On average 200,000 people are hospitalized, and

Influenza, an innocent little virus that annually comes and goes, has always been a part of people’s lives. Knowing this, one would not believe that it has caused not one, not two, but three pandemics and is on its way to causing a fourth! The Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu of 1957, and the Hong Kong

"The 1918 has gone: a year momentous as the termination of the most cruel war in the annals of the human race; a year which marked, the end at least for a time, of man's destruction of man; unfortunately a year in which developed a most fatal infectious disease causing the death of hundreds of thousands of human beings. Medical science for four and one-half years devoted itself to putting men on the firing line and keeping them there. Now it must turn with its whole might to combating the greatest enemy of all--infectious disease (Billings, 2005)." The influenza in 1919 was much bigger than a cold. In the two years that this disease swept the world one fifth of the population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of death was unusual for influenza which usually killed the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans. An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during this pandemic, about ten times as many as in World War 1. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them were killed by the influenza virus and not to the enemy. An estimated 43,000 soldiers who were sent for WWI died of influenza. The worldwide influenza epidemic adversely affected the U.S., both in the states and the soldiers at war. Subsequently, in the lack of medicine, lack of skilled doctors, and the lack of soldier preparation.

One of the worst outbreaks occurred in 1918 when World War I was coming to a close, and millions of soldiers were returning home. The virus spread quickly worldwide and reached pandemic proportions (Lamb). The pandemic was due to a new and extremely deadly strain of influenza, the H1N1 avian influenza A virus. It was dubbed the Spanish flu after it killed 8 million in Spain, and was one of the most lethal influenza pandemics in history. The high mortality rate was due to the severity of the symptoms and the extremely contagious nature of the virus (Schulman). It killed 20 million people in a matter of months, and by the time it ran its course, it had killed 50-100 million people worldwide. In the United States, 25 million were infected and 675,000 died. The 1918 flu went away within a year as it mutated into less lethal forms. Most people today have some degree of immunity to the H1N1 virus, inherited from those who survived the pandemic

There are there types of influenza A and C or the most severe types and B which is the most common, Luckily not the to severe. The virus works by first attaching to the outside of a host cell. It injects its RNA into the cell. Unfortunately our cells treat the RNA like they should. It translates the viral genes using the cell’s ribosomes and enzymes. Now the virus can take the cell over and use it to reproduce more viruses. Sooner or later it releases the new nauseating viruses and they search for another cell to raid.

The emergence of the “Hong Kong Flu” in 1968-1969 marked the beginning of the A(H3N2) days. When this virus first emerged it had the lowest mortality rate in the 20th century. Although this virus first emerged with such a small death rate, it still continues to kill people to this day. Just as when the A(H2N2) virus appeared in 1957 causing the disappearance of the A(H1N1) virus, the appearance of the A(H2N3) virus caused the disappearance of the A(H2N2) virus. After being dormant for almost 30 years, the A(H1N1) virus reappeared and today

There are 3 types of influenza virus: A, B, and C, but most of the times you'll find A and B "in action".

Flu season is upon us. By November 2017, cases of the flu had already been reported in the Southern United States. Our Plano pediatricians want parents to know how to protect their chil-dren from the serious complications that can develop from the flu, which is actually one of a number of viruses that attacks the respiratory system.